


I'm something of a moron, myself

by PostcardsfromTheoryland



Series: All that time, people thinking the worst of you [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Family, Mentions of previous drug abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 00:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7596316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostcardsfromTheoryland/pseuds/PostcardsfromTheoryland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Listen, Mycroft, if he’s ever near us, you inform him that he’s to visit. I don’t care if he brings a dozen assassins home with him. We haven’t seen him in so long, and – well. The matter is settled, anyways."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm something of a moron, myself

**Author's Note:**

> The third and final part of my series exploring the Holmes family relationship. Reading the previous two stories is recommended, but probably not necessary.

Timothy read the brief email again. It didn’t matter that he already had it memorised.

_Expect his arrival at approximately 8 o’clock Tuesday night. He cannot stay long. One night, perhaps two._

_Make sure he eats something._

He glanced at the clock again. 8:32.

“I’m sure he’s just fine,” Margot said from her position at the stove, stirring a pot of soup. “Mikey said ‘approximately,’ after all.”

“Mycroft’s ‘approximate’ is a layman’s ‘precise.’ What if something’s happened?”

“Maybe he’s just running a little late. Probably stopped to determine the exact time of death for some bit of roadkill on the way. He’ll be here any second.”

Sherlock was not there “any second.” It took a further hour, during which time Timothy tried not to panic and Margot made a second batch of soup, before there was the sound of a key scraping the lock and the front door being pushed open.

And then Sherlock was warily edging his way into their kitchen, looking skinny and scruffy and more confused than Timothy could ever remember seeing him, but he was alive. For a brief while Timothy had been afraid that Mycroft had lied to them about the boy’s death in a cruel attempt to comfort them.

It appeared, however, that Mycroft hadn’t briefed Sherlock on the situation at all. His bag actually slipped from his hands as he stared at the pair of them in shock. Timothy sat back, unsure of how to react; Sherlock made the decision for him.

“No,” he said simply, picking up the duffel he’d dropped and turning away. Margot got to him first, though, sweeping Sherlock, duffel and all, into a hug.

“No…Mummy,” Sherlock whined, squirming to escape.

“Hush, you. I don’t want to hear it. You killed yourself.”

“Clearly not,” came the muffled response against Margot’s shoulder.

“Well, how were we to know that? We hadn’t even seen you in over five years and then out of the blue you turn up dead in the paper, what were we supposed to think?”

“So obviously the next course of action is to commandeer one of Mycroft’s safehouses and ambush me.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Timothy admitted. Sherlock finally succeeded in tearing himself away from Margot and looked around the room in earnest.

“Oh God, this is your house! What were you thinking, what was Mycroft thinking? I need to leave, this isn’t safe.”

“Sherlock, stop,” Timothy said as Margot tried to contain him again. “Mycroft has kept you safe so far, and he thinks everything will be fine. We’re not expecting you to stay for a month. Just a day or so. Just a little stop. It will be alright.”

“When was the last time you really relaxed, Sherlock? Let someone else take care of things for a bit?” Sherlock looked away and Timothy caught sight of some grey hair coming in at his temple.

“Let us take care of things for a little while,” Timothy pleaded. It was an incredibly subtle change, but the fight went out of Sherlock at that. He wasn’t sure of when the last time he’d seen their boy so weary. He flashed a look in Margot’s direction and noticed she was concerned, as well. And when she was concerned, it tended to manifest as uncontrollable maternal instincts.

“Your clothes are filthy. Do you have any others in your bag? I’ll do a load of wash.” She began pulling a protesting Sherlock out of his shirt right there in the kitchen and Timothy was so relieved to see that the angry red marks he remembered so vividly had completely faded away. “Actually, you’re filthy, as well. You go have a shower, dinner can wait.” He gave her a calculating look, the sort that had been very prevalent during Sherlock’s university years, before trudging off in the direction of the bathroom.

When he reappeared a few minutes later, Sherlock looked significantly more relaxed. Timothy wasn’t sure if he had actually warmed up to the idea of spending the night in their house or if it was just an illusion brought on by the way the boy’s hair was fluffing up, making him look at least a decade younger.

“Now then. I’ve made your favorite – chicken and rice soup.”

“It’s only my favorite because it’s the one thing you can consistently make edible.”

“And I’ll bring you some tea,” she continued. Apparently Margot had decided the way to deal with Sherlock’s reappearance in their life was simply to steamroll over any objections he might have.

“Not hungry.”

Of course, he ended up eating two bowls anyways, plus a couple little tarts and consuming nearly an entire pot of tea by himself.

“No one here knows how to make a decent cup of tea,” Sherlock complained in between cups. “They keep insisting on brewing it over ice. How can you stand this country?”

“Well, it’s much warmer, for one. And considerably better on the lungs, not so much smog.”

Sherlock, his bag slung over his shoulder, retreated to their guest room after dinner without so much as another word and Timothy found himself concerned that the boy would try to pull a runner. He turned to Margot, only to see her wink conspiratorially at him.

“I bolted all the windows shut in case someone tried to get in,” she whispered. “It’s got the added benefit of making sure he doesn’t jump out in the middle of the night. Well, I suppose he could actually break the window, but that at least gives us a warning.”

God, he loved that woman.

Unfortunately, Timothy woke up in the very early hours of the morning and couldn’t shake the urge to check on him. It was foolish; Sherlock was a grown man, and he’d certainly be offended at the implication that he needed constant supervision. Heck, Sherlock was offended at the implication that he needed supervision when he’d been six. However, this was also the first time he’d actually seen his son in years, and now he was playing dead in order to take down a giant criminal syndicate. Timothy figured he’d earned the chance to make sure Sherlock hadn’t climbed out through the chimney or some other ridiculous nonsense.

He peeked his head into the guest room and was surprised to see Sherlock actually asleep. Silly boy was curled up on top of the bedclothes like an overgrown cat. He used to do that as a child: wear himself out and collapse on the nearest comfortable surface. Still, he looked cold. Timothy pulled out one of the spare blankets, a warm green fleece, and tried to drape it gently over his son.

Before he could tuck him in, Sherlock sprang awake, hand banding tightly around Timothy’s wrist. It hurt a bit, but he knew better than to struggle.

Sure enough, a couple seconds later Sherlock seemed to come back to himself, releasing his grip with an embarrassed “sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Timothy replied. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Just thought you might be cold.”

“Thank you.” Timothy hesitated, hating how unsure he was around his son before he sat down on the bed. He made an aborted gesture to stroke Sherlock’s hair but thought better of it, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder instead with the pretense of straightening the blanket.

“What have you been doing out there?”

“Probably better if you didn’t know. Your opinion of me is low enough as it is.”

“You know I don’t think that.”

“The last time I spoke to you, years ago, I called you dead from the neck up, a bloody fucking moronic waste of space, a blasted dalcop, probably not my real father since there was no way I could have inherited my intelligence from you, the _Dorftrottel_ , _une vache_ , and a twat. You’d be idiotic not to think poorly of me.”

“And I believe I responded in kind; told you Mycroft was a better son.”

“You did,” Sherlock said, picking at the blanket. “And he was.”

“No.” As awkward as the conversation was bound to be, Timothy was actually pleased they were having it. He’d never had the rest of the family’s way with words, but he had spent the last five years coming up with something loving and fatherly if they ever had this chance. “My failing as your parent, and Margot’s too, I think, is that we allowed ourselves to compare you two. Mycroft was always an easier son, yes. We didn’t get any calls home from teachers about him picking fights in class or doing drugs behind school buildings. But that doesn’t make him better.

“When I said that to you, I was angry, and I was scared for you. I was scared that you were going to hurt yourself, and in the process I made you think you weren’t important and pushed you away. And you honestly seemed to do better without us constantly interfering, so I – _we_ stayed out of things and probably made you think we didn’t want anything to do with you and made the entire situation worse. But that’s just not true. Do you know, the den walls are entirely covered in newspaper clippings about you and printouts from your blog, and John’s, too? Started as just one wall but then we had to expand it because you kept doing amazing things and helping so many people. The last one we put up was about your death, and we sat in the den looking at all your accomplishments with a bottle of whiskey and had a good cry. And then, of course, we called your brother.

“But the point I’m trying to make is that we’ve all made mistakes. And the ones you made didn’t warrant the ones your mother and I made in reaction. And I know you’re doing terribly dangerous things out there, mostly on your own, and we wanted to make sure that you knew how badly we had… fucked things up on our end. So whatever happens, you should be aware that you are still our son, and we are so proud of you, and...we love you.” A few minutes passed. Maybe he’d done or said something wrong, because Sherlock was still just lying on the bed, staring at him. “So. That’s um, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

“Right,” Timothy started. “I’ll just-”

“Every newspaper clipping?”

“Yes. We even had Mycroft mail us any foreign papers that talked about you. Margot translated them.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, we didn’t exactly tell you, did we?” This time he did reach down to smooth out Sherlock’s fringe, pleased when he seemed to relax. “I think I might make some tea, do you want any?” Sherlock shook his head, burrowing further beneath the blankets as Timothy got up. For a little while, it was like having a younger Sherlock back, and Timothy smiled to himself as an idea formed in his head.

Sherlock blinked one eye open from underneath the blanket as Timothy re-entered the room a few minutes later, mug of tea in hand and a book under his arm.

“What are you doing?”

“Just figured I’d do a bit of reading,” Timothy said casually. “I didn’t think you’d mind, and Margot always complains that she can’t sleep with the light on.”

“It’s 3 am.”

“Yes, well, I’ve just got to the good part.”

“It’s _Les Miserables_ ,” Sherlock grunted, sitting up enough to see the title. “There is no good part.”

“Go to sleep, Sherlock.” It took at least two hours but, against all odds, the boy’s breathing evened out, though he was still tense, on edge even in his sleep. At least he was resting. Timothy would just need to be thankful for small mercies.

* * *

His heart sank when he woke up, a crook in his neck, to an empty bed. He really should have expected it, but he wished Sherlock had at least said goodbye. Nothing for it, though. He shuffled into the kitchen, hopeful that Margot had already put on a pot of coffee, when he began to hear voices in the other room.

“…saying, it looks a bit ridiculous.”

“I’m supposed to look like a ‘trashy bum,’ as you so eloquently put it,” Sherlock said in annoyance. “No one looks twice at a homeless person. I need to be discreet.”

“Can’t you be discreet and clean?”

“When’s the last time you saw a homeless man whose mother had done his laundry?”

For a moment, it was as if the past hadn’t even happened, and Sherlock was back to around 16 years old and Margot was complaining that he’d got mud on his school trousers while examining some algae in the swamp in their back garden.

“Well, you’re certainly skinny enough for it. Eat your scrambled eggs.”

“They’re dry,” he complained. “How you continue not to understand basic culinary techniques is beyond me.”

“Oh, just cover it in cheese, love.”

“Cheese? My God, woman.”

“Don’t talk back to your mother, Sherlock.” Timothy cringed as he said it; apparently it was impulse to go back into a parental role. Sherlock didn’t seem particularly bothered, though, just rolled his eyes and went back to breakfast.

“Oh, he’s just fine,” Margot said, though she rather contradicted herself by starting to cry in the middle of their kitchen.

“Mother, what’s…? T-the eggs really aren’t that bad….” Sherlock tried, glancing at Timothy with barely controlled panic.

“It’s okay, it’s just that you’re here, and I thought we’d never see you again.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said, and he really did sound like it. “Mycroft was supposed to notify you sooner.”

“It’s not that, although we gave your brother a talking to about making sure everyone in the family knows when someone fakes their death.” She sat down heavily at the table next to him, looking like she was still amazed he was even there. “I thought we’d ruined it, after the drugs. I thought I’d ruined any chance of having a relationship with you.”

“Oh,” he replied dumbly. “I, er…”

“No, no, it’s alright,” she assured him, patting his hair on her way back to the stove. “We were all idiots. Do you want any tomatoes? Don’t answer that, I’ll get you some anyway.” Timothy couldn’t help but chuckle at the picture: Sherlock struck speechless at the nonconfrontational avoidance of his drug use and Margot taking the opportunity to force him to eat his vegetables.

“Just go with it,” Timothy suggested as he got himself a cup of coffee.

“We followed John’s blog, you know,” Margot said as she sprinkled some sugar onto his tomatoes. That had always been the way to him to eat vegetables, after all: appeal to his sweettooth. “Followed yours, too, but it really wasn’t as good, Sherlock, you should have left the writing to John.”

“Does he know?” Timothy asked, glancing up from the newspaper.

“No, I had to make him think it was real,” he said, staring at the table. “For his own safety. He was watching.”

“Good Lord.” Timothy couldn’t help but agree. Hearing about Sherlock’s supposed death was bad enough. But actually seeing it happen?

“Well I didn’t exactly have a choice!”

Sherlock went a bit quiet after that, spending most of the morning and early afternoon hunched over their kitchen table reading hundreds of documents in what looked like Portuguese. Timothy wondered if he actually had anything useful in his bag, like clothes or sunscreen, or if it was just stuffed full of spy transcripts. He tried to get Sherlock into another conversation about what he was doing, but the boy only hissed something under his breath that sounded quite like “please leave me alone.” Timothy supposed it was a compromise; he wouldn’t know what dangerous things Sherlock had done or was planning to do, but for now, sitting in their kitchen, was evidence that Sherlock was safe.

And at least he’d said “please.”

So he and Margot retreated to the sitting room and talked about how terrified they were for Sherlock in hushed voices. Margot cycled in and out of the kitchen with cups of tea that Sherlock occasionally drank, and even got him to accept a few biscuits now and again. It got clear, though, that Sherlock was getting more and more frustrated with whatever he was reading and he might storm out of their house in a huff soon if they weren’t careful. Timothy shared a look with Margot, and she smirked at him as she turned on the telly.

“Oh look, we’ve caught _Antiques Roadshow_! That always reminds me of home,” she said, settling further onto the loveseat with him. “Come on then, Sherlock. It will be like old times.” The boy grumbled in response, muttering something about inane hosts and fraudulent auctions, but Timothy noticed that he stretched out along the sofa without any further pushing from Margot.

“That man stole that painting from his ex-wife,” he remarked of the snappily-dressed American on the screen. “He never would have reframed it with that gaudy gold number himself.”

“She could have died,” Margot countered, in for the game.

“Then why is he selling her possessions? Going by the clothing he’s wearing, he’s not exactly strapped for cash. No, his new girlfriend is moving in and she wants the painting gone. And the host isn’t much better, he’s been stealing glances at the blonde behind him despite the wedding ring on his finger.” The appraiser chose that moment to declare the painting was worth $20,000, and Sherlock scoffed. “I doubt it. Only if the buyer has no knowledge of Romantic German art.”

“What about that one, then?” Timothy asked of the next hopeful client. Sherlock obliged, describing first a young girl with an antique teddy bear whose parents had given it to her solely to get her on television and then a pair of junkies selling random junk from their attic, looking particularly put out when the appraiser announced that it was basically worthless. Everyone mercifully ignored the similarities to Sherlock’s unfortunate choice to sell off a few family heirlooms for cocaine.

Of course, _Antiques Roadshow_ had to end eventually, and it was followed by a PBS special on 1960s politics. Even Timothy had to admit it was dry, but Margot winked at him and left the programme on before launching into a story about their friends Doris and Elaine. Sherlock spent the first twenty minutes or so making disparaging remarks, which gradually devolved into “hmm”s and “oh”s until they were both sure he was asleep.

* * *

“Father? Mum?” Timothy jerked awake to see Sherlock hovering in their doorframe, duffel slung on his shoulder.

“You’re leaving,” Timothy said, trying not to let the disappointment show in his voice. “I thought you might wait until morning.”

“I can’t,” he replied, and Timothy couldn’t decide if it was wishful thinking that made his voice sound regretful. “It’s much safer to leave in the dark. For all of us.”

“You’ll be careful, won’t you? I just want you to come home safe.”

“Listen to your brother, please,” Margot told him. Sherlock scoffed at the suggestion before Margot pinned him with a glare. How she could do that so well in minimal light was beyond him.

“Yes, mummy,” Sherlock grumbled obediently, though Timothy was fairly certain he was rolling his eyes.

“Good. We’ll come up to London for a visit when everything is all over. Maybe see a show, won’t that be nice?”

“Very nice, mummy.” The sarcasm was almost dripping from his voice, and Timothy took pity on him.

“We’ll have Mycroft take us to the show,” Timothy assured him in a stage whisper as Margot playfully smacked his arm. “He owes us, anyhow. You’ll….be safe?” he asked one last time.

“Yes,” Sherlock said as he backed into the hallway, repositioning his bag. “Promise. I’ll be safe and listen to Mycroft and look both ways before I cross the street and everything.”

“Sherlock?” The boy paused, turning slightly in the doorway. “You are our son, and we love you very much, but if your mother and I do end up holding an actual funeral for you, we’re going to be very cross. Is that understood?” And Sherlock, bless him, laughed.

“Understood.”


End file.
